David, can you explain to me how the carries required on CPC don't perform the same function? Isn't this a question of degree -- not black and white? There are plenty of forced carries at CPC.
First, perhaps I could better answer if you'd identify the "plenty of forced carries" at CPC. The photos of the course at its inception show a few forced carries, but very few.
To answer your first question . . . No, I cant explain how CPC's carries dont perform this same function. This is because any true forced carry performs this function
to a degree. But then I never advocated for the elimination of any and all forced carries, did I? This is all relative,
a matter of degree. Compared to many courses built today, CPC is largely absent of forced carries. Take the course Matt profiled recently. Four severe forced carries, and that was only on two holes. Same goes for CPC compared to my home course.
As to the forced carries, No. 15 has one I guess . . . but it is a pitch hole and while it is very intimidating there is very little ocean to carry.
No. 16 has a forced carry. According to MacKenzie, No. 16 had a carry of about 200 yds at the green, 100 yds near the tree, and even less of a carry following the 'safe route' even further left. Of course of these the only
forced carry.
According to MacKenzie in Spirit, at first he doubted the hole was ideal because it lacked a truly safe route; he dismissed these doubts after hearing of a golfer reaching the green with four putts. Certainly there was a degree of rationalization going on here (was there really a way to play left and carry less substantially less than 100 yds?? If I'd known this, I'd have taken it!) but his obvious concern with the issue may make this an exception which goes a long ways toward proving the rule.
Isn't this thread proof positive that what I've been saying for years now is true -- that some of the guys here who espouse classical architecture and subtlety are really after another goal -- making golf easy on lesser players so that no bad shot goes punished, thereby minimizing the differentiation between good golfers and bad golfers. Making it so that the bad golfer is propped up with the golfing equivalent of architectural welfare.
No, this post is not proof positive of any such thing. My inquiry has nothing to do with your inability to discuss anything without digressing into the same old right wing banter.
In short, your position is absurd. You assume I have an absurd goal, then you draw absurd conclustions. As you well know, my goal is not
" making golf easy on lesser players so that no bad shot goes punished, thereby minimizing the differentiation between good golfers and bad golfers. . . .As you recognize, golf is a game-- A competition with winners and losers, with scores determined by results. valued based on the result they acheive. But the features in the course influence the degree to which the golfer succeeds and/or fails.
I am merely examining the degree to which certain types of features influence different golfers with different skill sets.
Let me try to explain it in your language, absurd exaggeration:
Let's take a par 3 over a 330 yard precipice out of which play is impossible. Am I the Karl Marx of golf because I acknowledge that this hole will tend to favor the golfer who can consistently (or at least occassionally) carry the ball 330 yds (Hank Keuhne?), at least when compared to those who have no chance of ever making this carry.
Hank Keuhne might have a chance at a par, or at least might be able to eventually hit one over so he could hole out on the hole. Many golfers (even good ones) would have to conceed the hole or withdraw from the tournament, since they would be unable to ever complete the hole. This would be an example of a situation where the design is quite penal to one group of golfers (all of us) as compared to another group of golfers (Hank Keuhne and the like.)
On the other end of the spectrum would be a golf hole where the teeing ground was located on the lip of the cup, and where any golfer who could touch the ball with his club could record a hole in one. This would be the type of golf hole you absurdly claim I favor, above.
We have no need to discuss either one of these absurdities, becuase the are absurd. But there is quite a lot of grey area in between, and that is where my interest lies. A matter of degree. Get it? If so can we cut the absurd rhetoric and get back to the topic?
There are plenty of games that offer what you seek -- chess, poker, backgammon . . .
I dont play chess. And you don't play poker or backgammon. If you did would would never argue that these games fail to ultimately and adequately differentiate according to skill.
Poker and Backgammon are worth noting though because they strike A BALANCE between skill and luck. While it may take a while for the more skillful player to ultimately distinguish himself, he will no doubt do so in the long run.
If the old cop bunker designers better understood the importance of this balance in sport, they would undoubtledly have designed much more interesting courses. Same goes for those designers who love the forced carry.
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Adam, take offense, laugh, or even ignore the terminology if you like. No skin off my nose. These arent my terms. Duffer goes back at least to the discussions regarding cop bunkers which took place early in this century . . . .
I never said that forced carries were new, just that they are very prevalent in today's design, expecially when compared to the supposed golden age designs. Are you seriously disputing this?
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TEPaul,
I dont get the relevance of your PV discussion. You arent suggesting that Pine Valley was full of cop bunkers are you?
Multiple tees provide a rather ineffective antidote to the spread of the forced carry. If the multiple tees are too far apart then we arent really talking about the same course, are we? If they are close together, then they provide the duffer with no real relief from the forced carry in question.
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Andy, I can see how one might conclude that the cape hole (at least the modern conception with the carry off the tee) tends to undermine my premise. But on the other hand, any diagonal carry also has a major strategic element (not just penal) as the golfer can take on more or less depending on his preference. So on a cape hole only the shortest conceivable carry only the shortest carry is "forced" and some diagonal carries have no such carry at all.